SSSP Educational Problems Division Spring 2021 Newsletter In this issue: Letter from the Division Chair, Introducing our new Division Chair Dr. Myron T. Strong, Graduate Student Paper Awards, Publications by Division Members, Division Member Achievements, Call for Social Media Coordinator, Important Dates. SSSP General Election SSSP continues to seek nominees for key elected positions for 2022. This includes an array of positions, from President and Vice President to the Anti-Harassment Committee or Publications Committee. These elected positions are the glue that holds this organization together! There should be a commitment to nominating a diverse slate of nominees. This includes diversity based on racial-ethnic background, gender and sexual identities, geographic locations, and institutional settings (e.g., academia, practitioners, organizations, etc.). All nominees must be a current member in order to be considered. Self-nominations are welcome. Nominations should include a brief description of the nominee’s SSSP involvement and other relevant experiences. All nominations should be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, June 15, 2021. Self-nominations are allowed! Nominees do need to be current members, so if you haven’t renewed your membership yet, now is a good time to do so! Visit the SSSP website for more information. Letter from the Division Chair, Linda M. Waldron: Dear Division Members, Although popularized through his work on suicide, Emile Durkheim introduced the concept of anomie earlier in his seminal work, The Division of Labour in Society (1893). Durkheim used the concept to describe this sense of normlessness that occurs in society when the social standards and values that tend to regulate our behavior are no longer available. For so many of us, the past 18 months have been marked by anomie. How we teach and conduct our research, how we travel and spend time with friends and family, the ways that we engage in activism and social protest, all have been marked with uncertainty and instability. We have been faced with unprecedented challenges and in so many ways our society’s collective consciousness has been completely uprooted. At the same time, we have been resilient, adapting to a new social order, creating news norms. For many of us, we have learned to teach an online class for the first time and in doing so have learned some pedagogical strategies that may serve us well when we return to in-person teaching. We have grown accustomed to going to work with a mask on, using new technologies to create alternative spaces for collaborative work, all the while juggling our own children’s educational needs. It hasn’t always been easy. I personally have had moments of complete chaos in both the class and at home, grown frustrated with having to troubleshoot one more technological problem, and ended my day with a combination of anxiety and exhaustion. Yet at the same time I have seen some of my students amaze me with their creativity, my colleagues astonish me with their innovative teaching, and my kids impress me with their appreciation of the simple things in life. It is these moments that I am so grateful for a reprieve from the lingering sense of anomie. This newsletter marks my last one as your Division Chair. I welcome our new chair Dr. Myron Strong in this newsletter and trust that in August he will take the helm with much excitement and passion. Take the time to read about his background in the upcoming pages. We also announce our Graduate Paper Award recipient, Sandra Portocarrero, with honorable mention going to Ruo-Fan (Mikki) Liu. Read about their work below and be sure to go to their presentations during the 2021 meeting. Thank you for the time and effort of our amazing group of judges for their work in reviewing the many submissions and helping to select the winner—Alma Nidia Garza, Michael Miner, Fiona Pearson and Catherine Voulgarides. Our division will hold its annual virtual business meeting on Monday July 26th at 12:00pm (EST). A link to that virtual meeting is provided in this email. I hope you can attend! We are currently recruiting a new Social Media Coordinator, so please let me know if you know anyone who might be interested. Finally, I look forward to seeing so many of you in August for our SSSP Virtual Annual Meeting. This year’s theme is “Revolutionary Sociology: Truth, Healing, Reparations and Restructuring” and our division is well represented with paper presentations and critical dialogues. I would encourage you to renew your membership and register for the conference today! I hope you all can find some rest and relaxation in these coming months! My best, Linda Introducing our new SSSP Educational Problems Division Chair Dr. Myron T. Strong Myron T. Strong graduated with his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Texas in 2014. He has B.A. in English and minor in chemistry and a M.Ed. in secondary education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Community College of Baltimore County in Baltimore, Maryland. His current research is Afrofuturism and explores race, gender and other social factors in modern comics. Two of his most recent articles were published in Sociological Forum and Context. In Sociological Forum, “The Emperor Has New Clothes:? ?How Outsider Sociology Can Shift the Discipline” explores the ways that the discipline of sociology fails to address the needs of community college sociologists and marginalizes them as outsiders. It argues that the structure of the discipline both training and focus is the major barrier to becoming inclusive. Based on this, it explores ways in which sociology can be inclusive of community college sociologists and how they can address their needs. This article won the ESS Barbara R. Walters Community College Faculty Award in 2019. Published in Context “Afrofuturism and Black Panther,” uses an Afrofuturism perspective to analysis the movie Black Panther. It was significant because it builds on previous work and continues to position Afrofuturism as a great perspective to understand and unlock the meaning of the cultural texts of Black life. It has been used by professors and students in courses across the country. His most recent co-authored book Sociology in Stories: A Creative Introduction to a Fascinating Perspective: a Customized Version for The Community College of Baltimore County uses multiple lenses to frame the sociological stories that make up each chapter. Stories in this book take both macro and micro settings and feature stories like the “Sociology of Spongebob,” “Uncle Sam and the Crowd,” and “That’s My Car” to teach sociological theory and sociological concepts. This narrative based approach also examines the broad view of social structure that reflects patterned arrangements that guide social behavior and the agency people use within their lives to express their independence from social structure. It won the Innovation of the Year for the Community College of Baltimore County and was nominated an award in ASA Teaching and Learning section. Being involved in the discipline was one of my main goals and since obtaining my doctorate in 2014. I have served on numerous committees for ESS, ABS and ASA. Currently at ESS, I am a member of the executive committee and the co-chair of the Committee on Community Colleges. I am also part of ESS mentoring initiatives. Within ASA, I serve numerous section committees, I am currently on these ASA wide committees: Committee on the Status Race and Ethnic Minorities, ASA Annual Meeting Travel Fund Selection Committee, and the Organizing Committee for the Third Annual Teaching Symposium for the 2020 and 2021 annual meeting. I am also a council member for both the Race, Gender, and Class and recently completed a term on the council for the Sex and Gender section. Graduate Student Paper Awards Award Recipient: Sandra Portocarrero, Department of Sociology, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University “Qué Vergüenza: Ambiguity around Diversity and Inclusion and How National Scholarship Recipients Became Ashamed of What Once Made Them Most Proud”  How can ambiguity around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) lead recipients of a merit- based national scholarship to become ashamed of holding this prestigious accolade? Focusing on the case of national scholarship recipients enrolled at an elite university in Peru, I examine how the lack of clarity around DEI has lasting negative effects that are sustained in everyday organizational life. Using participant–observer and in-depth interview data, I find that, though initially proud of holding a prestigious national scholarship, recipients learn to feel ashamed of this accolade. Unintentionally, governance board members, faculty, administrative staff, and prototypical elite students turn holding a prestigious national scholarship into a stigma. After internalizing the stigma, recipients learn to feel ashamed of their scholarship status, and deploy various cognitively exhausting strategies to manage their shame. My findings offer a case that reveals the role that social organizational processes within organizations play in the development of unpleasant emotions attached to the identities of disadvantaged people. It shows how well- intentioned DEI initiatives designed to foster the inclusion of disadvantaged people can backfire, negatively affecting individuals, groups, and organizations. Honorable Mention: Ruo-Fan (Mikki) Liu, Department of Sociology,  Ph.D. Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison “Status Competition in the Digital Era: Degree Seeking, Public Credentialism, and Informal Counseling in Two Taiwanese Social Media Sites” Students with college degrees are likely to obtain satisfactory employment, but few studies examine how students assess the value of degrees when they are inadequate after universal higher education. Based on content analyses of 1,260 posts on a Dcard* undergrad forum and 640 posts on a PTT* senior high forum, which are the two most influential local social media sites in Taiwan, I investigate how students make sense of the value of degrees and how online platforms shape dominant narratives on choosing a degree. I argue that the value of a degree is congruently defined by the messages surrounding teenagers, which reassign, redefine, and place degrees in the existing status hierarchy. I call this phenomenon “public credentialism,” which is a collective status-building process through which individuals assign value to degrees through online narratives, social closure, and online argument styles. While the literature on college choices is dominated by quantitative rational-choice studies, digital ethnography sheds light on the meaning-making process and advances the discussion on relative value in credential theory. *Dcard and PTT are popular online social networking sites in Taiwan For a list of all of our previous Educational Division Graduate Student Paper Award recipients, please visit: https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/463/locationSectionId/0/Student_Paper_Competitions_and_Outstanding_Scholarship_Awards Publications by Division Members Please take a moment to review, cite, and use as a class reading one of these wonderful works published by our division members. Kramarczuk Voulgarides, C., & Aylward, A. Tefera, A., Artiles, A., Alvarado, S. & Noguera, P. (forthcoming) “Unpacking the logic of compliance in special education: Contextual influences in discipline racial disparities in suburban schools” Sociology of Education, Summer 2021.   Abstract: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 1997, 2004) is a civil-rights–based law designed to protect the rights of students with disabilities in U.S. schools. However, decades after the initial passage of IDEA, racial inequity in special education classifications, placements, and suspensions are evident. In this article, we focus on understanding how racial discipline disparities in special education outcomes relate to IDEA remedies designed to address problem behaviors. We qualitatively examine how educators interpret and respond to citations for racial discipline disproportionality via IDEA at both the district and school levels in a suburban locale. We find that educators interpret the inequity in ways that neutralize the racialized implications of the citation, which, in turn, affects how they respond to the citation. These interpretations contribute to symbolic and race-evasive IDEA compliance responses. The resulting bureaucratic and organizational structures associated with IDEA implementation become a mechanism through which the visibility of race and racialization processes are erased and muted through acts of policy compliance. Thus, the logic of compliance surrounding IDEA administration serves as a reproductive social force that sustains practices that do not disrupt locally occurring racialized inequities.  Shifrer, Dara & Mackin Freeman, Daniel. 2021. Problematizing Perceptions of STEM Potential: Differences by Cognitive Disability Status in High School and Postsecondary Educational Outcomes. Socius 7:1-13. Abstract: The STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) potential of youth with cognitive disabilities is often dismissed through problematic perceptions of STEM ability as natural and of youth with cognitive disabilities as unable. National data on more than 15,000 adolescents from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 first suggest that, among youth with disabilities, youth with medicated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have the highest levels of STEM achievement, and youth with learning or intellectual disabilities typically have the lowest. Undergraduates with medicated ADHD or autism appear to be more likely to major in STEM than youth without cognitive disabilities, and youth with autism have the most positive STEM attitudes. Finally, results suggest that high school STEM achievement is more salient for college enrollment than STEM-positive attitudes across youth with most disability types, whereas attitudes are more salient than achievement for choosing a STEM major. Special Publication Recognition The following paper by Michael Miner was the 2019 recipient of the Educational Problems Division Graduate Paper Award—Honorable Mention. It is with great pleasure that we see get to see the work of one of our awardees in print. Congratulations Michael! Miner, M. A. (2021). Caught in Limbo: Mapping Social Spaces for First-Generation Students in Graduate School. Humanity & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/01605976211001553 Abstract: The share of college students who are first-generation has grown rapidly in recent decades. Less attention has been paid to the educational experiences of graduate students. This article asks: How do first-generation students in graduate school differ from one another in their experiences with the socialization process? Based on data from in-depth interviews with 41 graduate students at a large research university, this article examines student narratives of experiences and circumstances to characterize multiple social spaces in graduate school. Contrary to notions suggesting that first-generation students share a similar group experience, these data reveal that first-generation students have divergent experiences and circumstances that characterize four distinct regions. Drawing on social capital and socialization theories, I find that students occupy social spaces that (1) modify, (2) adapt or (3) defy the socialization processes of graduate school. Findings also show barriers for those that are (4) excluded. Congratulations are in order for the following achievements! Odis Johnson and John Diamond have been elected to become the new editors of the American Sociological Association journal, Sociology of Education. Sociology of Education (SOE) provides a forum for studies in the sociology of education and human social development. SOE publishes research that examines how social institutions and individuals’ experiences within these institutions affect educational processes and social development. They will begin their term as co-editors in January 2022. This is a great accomplishment! Consider sending your educational problems manuscripts their way! Irina Chukhray recently became a Fellow at the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. Irina is currently a doctoral student in sociology at University of California, Davis. Her mixed-method research broadly examines immigrant youth’s structural adaptation. Specifically, she studies supports and constraints in access to higher education as well as wellbeing among immigrant students. Congratulations Irina! Recruiting a New Division Social Media Coordinator The Educational Problems Division is now recruiting a new social media coordinator. Currently, this position focuses on maintaining our division’s Facebook page in coordination with the division chair. This usually involves a few posts per month, although the coordinator is welcome to expand our social media presence in new and creative ways. It is a great way for a division member, especially a graduate student, to get involved with SSSP! This position includes a small annual honorarium of $100. If interested, please contact our current division chair, Linda Waldron, lwaldron@cnu.edu. If you aren’t already doing so, follow us on Facebook, @ssspeducationalproblems. Mark your Calendars! Educational Problems VIRTUAL Division Business Meeting Monday July 26, 2021 at 12:00pm (Eastern Standard Time) Google Meet joining info: Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bzs-admn-pwj Or dial: ?(US) +1 337-346-2823? PIN: ?553 513 692?#???? Divisional meetings are held before our annual conference and serve as a forum to discuss concerns of the division and can be a place to: a) suggest sessions for next year’s program b) plan special activities of the division c) discuss awards sponsored by the division d) recruit members for the division and the Society’s leadership e) plan publishing projects We hope you can join us! SSSP Annual Meeting If you have not already done so, please register for the 71st Virtual Annual Meeting, which takes place August 4-7, 2021. (Program Participant registration deadline is June 1, 2021.) This year’s theme is “Revolutionary Sociology: Truth, Healing, Reparations and Restructuring.” The Educational Problems Division has many great sessions this year and we hope to see you virtually! In addition to the usual conference activities, there are several optional one-day workshops you might want to consider attending. 1. Community-Based Participatory Action Research (limit 50), Tuesday, August 3, 8:45am–4:30pm (Eastern Time), Registration Fee: $75 for employed registrants or $25 for unemployed/activist/student registrants 2. Advancing Activist Scholarship and Engaged Pedagogy in Promotion and Tenure (limit 50), Tuesday, August 3, 1:00pm–4:00pm (Eastern Time), Registration Fee: $10 for all registrants 3. Institutional Ethnography (limit 60), Sunday, August 8, 9:00am–3:00pm (Eastern Time), Registration Fee: $50 for employed registrants or $20 for unemployed/activist/student registrants 4. Social Impact--Social Change: Storytelling (limit 50), Sunday, August 8, 1:00pm–4:00pm (Eastern Time), Registration Fee: $10 for all registrants Visit the SSSP website for more information and to register for the conference and these workshops! https://www.sssp1.org/ Educational Problems Division Final Conference Schedule Date: Wednesday, August 4 Time: 9:30 AM - 11:15 AM Session 005: Students on the Margins of Education Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer & Facilitator: Kristopher A. Oliveira, University of South Florida Papers: “A Black Feminist Discourse Analysis of the Media’s Framings of Black Girls’ Experiences with School Discipline,” Ruby Bafu, University of Wisconsin-Madison “Demanding the Impossible: Abolition, Black Futurities, and the Disruptive Power of Black Imagination,” Amaryst Parks-King, University of Notre Dame “Divergent Pathways: How Pre-orientation Programs Can Shape the Transition to College for Historically Underrepresented Students,” Lauren M. Beard, University of Chicago “Feeling Vibes and Building Bonds: Student-Educator Trust from the Perspectives of Black Youth,” Brittany Nicole Fox-Williams, Lehman College, CUNY “Infrastructures of Sociality: How Students Improvise against Inequality at the University,” Kriti Budhiraja, University of Minnesota Date: Wednesday, August 4 Time: 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM Session 013: Students on the Margins of Education II Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer & Facilitator: Kristopher A. Oliveira, University of South Florida Papers: “Feminist Pedagogy and the Feminist Sociological Imagination: Student-centered Critical Narratives,” hara bastas, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY “Qué Vergüenza: Ambiguity around Diversity and Inclusion and How National Scholarship Recipients Became Ashamed of What Once Made Them Most Proud,” Sandra V. Portocarrero, Columbia University, Winner of the Educational Problems Division’s Student Paper Competition “STEM Doctorate Fields’ Academic Diversity and Demographic Inclusivity,” Yun Kyung Cho, University of Wisconsin-Madison “Technological Efficacy, Pedagogical Effectiveness, and Their Influence on Online Course Satisfaction among Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education,” Madhumita Banerjee, University of Wisconsin-Parkside “What Does Social Agency Have to do with It? Positive Pathways to Adulthood for Opportunity Youth and College Students in Rhode Island,” Perri S. Leviss, University of Massachusetts Boston Date: Thursday, August 5 Time: 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM Session 047: Immigrant Youth and Access to Higher Education Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer: Irina Chukhray, University of California, Davis Presider: Carolina Valdivia, University of California, Irvine Papers: “‘Russian Math Schools’ in the United States: Responding to the Needs of Immigrant Communities,” Irina Olimpieva, CISR INC and Robert Orttung, The George Washington University “Immigrants’ Age-at-Arrival in the US and College Enrollment,” Irina Chukhray, University of California, Davis “Inequalities in Postsecondary Attainment by English Learner Status: The Role of College-level Course-taking,” Brian Holzman and Esmeralda Sanchez Salazar, Rice University and Irina Chukhray, University of California, Davis “Linked Fate and Acts of Resistance and Solidarity: Understanding Motivating Factors for Institutional Actors,” Vanessa Nunez, University of Nevada, Las Vegas “Rendering Inaccessible the Affordable Public Higher Education System in France to non-European Students,” Spoorthi Gangadikar, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Date: Thursday, August 5 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM Session 050: Transformative Technology and the Growing Digital Divide: Educational Promise and Peril Sponsors: Disability, Educational Problems & Environment and Technology Organizer: Andrew Baird, Christopher Newport University Presider: Taylor Devereaux, University of Central Florida Papers: “‘Going Online’ - Experiences of Online Schooling among Disabled Students in India during Covid-19,” Anuj Goyal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and Sakshi Rai, Jawaharlal Nehru University “Girls, Gadgets and Gatekeepers: How Gender and Class Shape Adolescent Access to Mobile Phones in Mumbai, India,” Isha Bhallamudi, University of California, Irvine “Online and Correspondence: Cautions and Possibilities for College-level Prison Courses,” Colleen Rost-Banik, Windward Community College “Status Competitions in a Digital Era: Degree-seeking, Public Credentialism, and Informal Counseling in Two Taiwanese Social Medias,” Ruo-Fan Liu, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Honorable Mention in the Educational Problems Division’s Student Paper Competition “Students’ Racialized Experiences with an Industry-sponsored Computer Science Program,” Noemi Linares-Ramirez, University of California, Irvine Date: Friday, August 6 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM Session 076: Schools, Punishment, and Juvenile Justice Sponsors: Crime and Juvenile Delinquency, Educational Problems, Law and Society & Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizers & Presiders: Terrence Tyrone Allen, Prairie View A&M University Charles Bell, Illinois State University Papers: “‘Vacation from all the Foolishness’: Juvenile Justice, Racial Capitalism, and Racialized Time in the Carceral State,” Julio A. Alicea, University of California, Los Angeles “Diversion Program’s Outcomes of Youth’s Future Behavior,” Jasmine M. Whitney, The George Washington University “Does the ‘Code of the School’ Encourage Educator Targeted Violence?” Charles Bell, Illinois State University “Queer Investments in Punishment: School Climate and Youth of Color in the United States,” Chris Barcelos, University of Massachusetts Boston and Gabrielle Orum Hernández, University of Wisconsin-Madison “Safety Nets or Valves into the School-to-prison Pipeline: How Placement into an Alternative Education Program for At-risk Students Affects Risk for Drop Out and Juvenile Incarceration,” Kenya I. Lee, University of Notre Dame Date: Friday, August 6 Time: 3:30 PM - 5:15 PM Session 084: Race, Family and Community Cultural Wealth Sponsors: Educational Problems & Family Organizers: Noemi Linares-Ramirez, University of California, Irvine Estéfani Marín, University of California, Irvine Presider: Estéfani Marín, University of California, Irvine Papers: “Being and Becoming a Community: Organizational Density and Perceptions of Collective Efficacy in Historically Black Neighborhoods,” Daniel Bolger, Rice University “Criminalizing Childhood: The Politics of Urban Violence at Delhi’s Urban Margins,” Ragini Saira Malhotra, University of Southern Maine “Dress Codes: Discipline, Destiny or Disruptive Policing?” Carletta S. Hurt, University of the District of Columbia and LaNysha T. Adams, Edlinguist Solutions “School-based Parental Involvement and Elementary School Students’ Outcomes in Math and Reading,” Matthew Aaron Erkenbrack, University of California, Irvine “We Are Not of This Place: On Race, Identity and Criminality among Incarcerated White Youth,” Julissa O. Muñiz and Jessica M.W. Marshall, Northwestern University Date: Saturday, August 7 Time: 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM THEMATIC Session 105: Radical Imagination, Global Social Change and Empowerment in Higher Education Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer & Presider: Elaine J. Laberge, University of Victoria Papers: “‘Make Me Proud’: A Critical Examination of HBCU Commencement Speeches during the Black Lives Matter Era,” Kenya L. Goods, Howard University “Disability Stigma: Factor Structure among University Faculty,” Robert Michael Matchett, Louisiana State University “The Empathy Gap in Graduate Supervision: Faculty Trauma and the Problem of ‘Back in My Day’ in Reimagining Graduate Education,” Lily Ivanova, University of British Columbia “‘Poison in the Walls’: How the Threat of Lead Exposure Contributes to Housing Insecurity amidst Urban Decline,” Matthew H. McLeskey, University at Buffalo, SUNY “Spoken Word & Speaking Back: When Using Your Voice Isn’t a Choice,” Carol Ann B. Jackson, University of Connecticut Date: Saturday, August 7 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM Session 113: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Covid-19, Disability, & the Politics of Education Sponsors: Disability, Educational Problems & Institutional Ethnography Organizers: Kyla Walters, Sonoma State University, Heather Sue McDonald Rosen, University of Georgia, and Rashmee Karnad-Jani, University of Toronto Presider/Discussant: Heather Sue McDonald Rosen, University of Georgia Papers: “Keeping Sociologists in the Conversation: The Many Pandemics of Higher Education,” Heather E. Dillaway, Wayne State University “Situation of Learning and Teaching during Covid-19 Pandemic in Iran,” Farzaneh Ejazi, Shahed University “The Social Organization of Post-secondary Students’ Accommodation Practices during Covid-19 and the Work of Disability,” Elizabeth Brule, Queen's University “An Intersectional Analysis of Higher Education Careers in the Context of Covid-19: Differential Impacts by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Indigeneity,” Noreen Kohl, Nathalie P. Rita and Marina Karides, University of Hawai?i at M?noa “Understanding How to Create Student Bonding in Addressing Retention and Student Success,” Giovanna Follo, Wright State University - Lake Campus, Ashley Hall, Wright State University and Diane Huelskamp, Wright State University - Lake Campus